


and seen for the wonder i am

by lovelit



Category: Original Work
Genre: Devotion, Fantasy Royalty, M/M, Patricide, Sibling Incest, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:08:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26243929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelit/pseuds/lovelit
Summary: Caeles is six years old when the queen gives his father an heir.The servant boys expect him to be jealous, he thinks. The queen has so long been without child that there had been whispers of her being barren, and further whispers of an official adoption of Caeles.(But Caeles has never wanted to be king. And anyway, he’d snuck into the nursery when nobody was around to get a look at Kaeso and, in the grand and dramatic way of children, he thinks he might be in love.)
Relationships: Crown Prince/His Bastard Brother Who Conspires With Him to Overthrow Their Father
Comments: 15
Kudos: 168
Collections: RelationShipping 2020





	and seen for the wonder i am

**Author's Note:**

  * For [straightforwardly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/straightforwardly/gifts).



Caeles is six years old when the queen gives his father an heir.

The servant boys expect him to be jealous, he thinks. The queen has so long been without child that there had been whispers of her being barren, and further whispers of an official adoption of Caeles. A bastard he might be, and a half-breed to boot, but it’s still the king’s blood in his veins. He would be a better heir than none.

But now there is an heir, and so the servant boys think him jealous. To have lost his chance at being king, and to a baby! They commiserate with him, all companionable slaps on the back and sympathetic grins; to them he’s more theirs than he is the king’s, and _they_ would lament the loss. It’s unfathomable to them that he might differ, in this respect.

(But Caeles has never wanted to be king. And anyway, he’d snuck into the nursery when nobody was around to get a look at Kaeso and, in the grand and dramatic way of children, he thinks he might be in love.)

* * *

Kaeso grows up with all the attention and care that Caeles had never gotten. He is the prince and the heir, and he grows with this knowledge pushed at him before he’s even old enough to understand it.

He also, to the chagrin of his parents, grows up fascinated with his older brother. The top of the household have made Caeles interesting by pushing him out and keeping him close all at once, because it means that Kaeso knows early on that Caeles is his brother. It means that he questions, as children do so well, why his brother - and an elder brother, too! - isn’t treated with the kind of care that he is.

His parents don’t seem to understand this. They fail to realize that Kaeso is, by nature, a thoughtful child, and that Caeles’ situation is confusing to anyone who doesn’t yet understand the nature of bastards. They don’t understand _why_ that makes him so interesting. They have no interest in Caeles, particularly now that Kaeso is there with his pure and royal and fully-human bloodline, and so it bothers them that Kaeso maintains an interest despite all their efforts to distract him.

(Caeles could enlighten them, if he wanted. But why should he?)

* * *

Kaeso is nearing ten summers before he finally, truly asks the _right_ questions. He’s asked little things before, over the years, but vague and hesitantly enough that Caeles has never truly answered him.

This time, though, over Caeles’ battered draughts board, Kaeso finally says, “I heard mother speaking to father about you last week.”

Caeles glances at him, offering up only the slow blink of acknowledgement that he’s learned over the years from the cats in the palace grounds.

Kaeso wets his lips with his tongue, suddenly nervous-looking. “…she called you a half-breed bastard,” he says, the words awkward in his mouth.

Caeles huffs out a silent laugh through his nose. “Hm. That sounds like the queen.”

That earns him a frown, and he sighs.

“You know by now, presumably, that we don’t share a mother? Her Grace calling me a bastard is of no import. It’s only the truth.”

Kaeso nods, slowly, but something flares up in his eyes. “And half-breed?”

Ah. He’s a justice-minded little thing, despite all of their father’s attempts to make him see sense and accept cruelty. He can accept the truth in ‘bastard’, but ‘half-breed’ stalls him.

Still. Caeles only tilts his head, the better to let the light catch the long points of his ears. “That’s only the truth as well, isn’t it?” He pauses, and then adds, “Father fucked an elf, and I was the get.”

The vulgarity curls in his mouth, satisfying but unbecoming of him. The servant boys would be proud of him for finally loosening up and letting a curse pass his lips. His brother only looks scandalized by it.

Into the silence, Caeles looks down at the board, and then pushes away from the table. “You’ve won, five moves away,” he comments. “Good night, brother.”

(Kaeso’s eyes follow him out of the room, but he says nothing more.)

* * *

There’s a drive in Kaeso, after that. As observant as Caeles is, particularly where his brother is concerned, it still takes him a while to notice it.

It should have been obvious in retrospect, though. Their fascination with one another has always been a mutual thing, and Kaeso has always looked upon Caeles’ treatment with both curiosity and a slowly-growing disdain over the years. Confirming the reasons for it - that it truly is thanks to nothing more than his existence being proof of their father’s indiscretions - has only darkened Kaeso’s eyes where his parents are concerned.

Still, Caeles doesn’t realize it. It’s only little things, easily forgotten.

Caeles has always been fond of knife tricks, moreso than swordplay, and Kaeso has always been impressed by them. And so it’s of no great note, that his fascination increases. He’s beginning to learn to fight for himself, and it’s no real surprise that he takes an interest in the differences between their approach. Kaeso learns swords and lances, as a prince ought to. Caeles learns to wield knives and hide in the shadows, to make himself as invisible and silent as his father and stepmother wish he would be.

Caeles has always observed the Court, watching and cataloguing the relationships between the nobles and their influence. It’s no real surprise, either, that as Kaeso is expected to pay more attention to the politics of the realm, he leans on his brother’s knowledge. Caeles has always been the more observant of the pair, and Kaeso always quick to turn to him with a question on his lips.

It is utterly unremarkable, all of it.

Kaeso manipulates him with a quiet and unnoticeable ruthlessness that Caeles doesn’t register until - at twenty summers and grown beautiful in a light, ephemeral way that makes it seem like _he_ ought to be the one born from an elf - his brother turns to him and says, light and casual, “I have need of your skills, brother.”

Caeles tilts his head, pausing over his book with a page half-turned. “Oh?”

Kaeso drums his fingers against the arm of the couch he’s half-reclined on, an affected casualness that he nonetheless pulls off well.

“If we were to take the throne by force, would we best be served sparing Deidius Gallus, or Lucilia Claudia? Or perhaps we’d have no need for either of them?”

Caeles blinks, slow and considering. “And… how long, exactly, have you been planning this coup?”

Kaeso flashes him an impatient look that belies the casual disinterest he’s been affecting. “Since I was ten years old. Keep up, and answer the question.”

Caeles blinks again. Considers his brother, and lets ten years of their life realign themselves in his mind.

And then he leans forward, his book tossed carelessly to one side, and says, “Gallus has been pining after our father for years, and to die alongside his precious king would be a mercy. Claudia is an ice-hearted viper; if you tame her, she’ll be the best advisor you could ever hope for. If you don’t, she’ll sell you out in a second.”

Kaeso watches him for a long moment, and then tosses one hand in a dismissive gesture. “In that case, shall they both find their way to a knife in the throat? The best advisor _I_ could ever hope for is a half-breed bastard, not a viper.”

(If Caeles’ grin at that is halfway to feral, Kaeso’s answering one is no better.)

* * *

Kaeso’s coup is fast, because it has _not_ been fast. He’s spent ten years planning it, and ten years moulding Caeles into the perfect tool for it.

Were it anyone else, Caeles would resent it. He’d never let his father’s influence turn him into the perfect silent but faithful bastard, or the servant boys strip the highborn nature that has always set him apart from those lowborn friends of his. He’d never let the palace teachers train him into an honorable knight or a decent politician, the sort of position where he could be a benefit to the crown but an entirely unremarkable one. He has, at every turn, resisted any sort of boxing into a role for him that would suit the Court’s plans.

And in the process, he’s allowed Kaeso to mould him into the perfect role to suit _his_ plans, someone who can strike fast and ruthless and then tell Kaeso which strings to pull in the aftermath to bring the entire realm to heel. He ought to feel played, most likely.

But his feelings have never faltered, since that day twenty years ago when he had looked into Kaeso’s crib and quietly, privately, declared himself to be in love. It is _pride_ , not resentment, that burns in his veins as he holds the blade to their father’s throat.

“My son, please,” the king begs, his eyes fixed on Kaeso in front of him. He spares no glance to Caeles behind him, even as Caeles’ is the hand to hold the knife in place.

Perhaps he’s learned at least this one thing over the years, then; that Caeles follows Kaeso’s will before his own, and gladly. Perhaps he’s only so used to ignoring his firstborn that it comes naturally, even now. Kaeso’s eyes narrow at it, whatever the answer is. He meets Caeles’ gaze over their father’s shoulder, and then tosses his head in a discontented motion.

“Should you not be pleading with the son who has a knife to your throat, father? What do you expect _me_ to do, all the way over here?”

Caeles feels the motion as their father swallows, nervous. Trying to find the right answer to save his skin.

If there’s an answer like that, it’s several years too late. Kaeso is more than set in his plans, now, and if their father can’t see that then Caeles certainly can. He meets Kaeso’s eyes again, and tilts his head, questioning. Just the slightest motion, only visible to someone who’s really watching for it.

Kaeso stares at him, the silence extending and only broken by their father trying to stutter out some defence or plea that neither of them is listening to. And then he nods, sharp and decisive, and Caeles draws the blade across their father’s throat just as decisively in time with the motion.

Kaeso is not so far away that he avoids the spray of blood. It splashes across his face and the front of his fine clothes, just as it covers Caeles’ hands.

It suits him, though. He looks half wild, covered in the king’s blood and with something animal and bright burning in his eyes, and Caeles is struck once again by the thought that - for all that he’s the full human of the two of them - Kaeso is the one who looks as though he ought to have elf blood in his veins. There’s something fae and wild about him, and never more than in this moment.

(It’s beautiful. Caeles would follow him to the ends of the earth and all the realms beyond it. Caeles _will_.)

When he lets the king’s body drop to the floor and steps forward over it, Kaeso steps forward to meet him in the middle. Somehow, Caeles isn’t surprised that Kaeso immediately pulls him down into a fierce and brutal kiss, all tongue and teeth and the taste of their father’s blood on their lips.

(Hasn’t their fascination always been mutual? Hasn’t this been ten years in the making, just as much as the rest of it?)

When Kaeso finally pulls back, panting like some wild thing, half of the blood on his lips now might well be Caeles’. His mouth certainly feels raw enough for it.

It doesn’t faze him, though. Caeles only reaches up to press his hand against Kaeso’s cheek, brushing his thumb across the pale skin and smearing the blood that rests there. This is his brother, the new king. This is his brother, who has held Caeles’ heart in an unexpectedly ruthless grip since the moment Caeles laid eyes upon him.

This is the man who has made Caeles what he is today.

(Assassin. Advisor. Kingslayer. He relishes every one of them, because they’ve come from Kaeso’s hands upon his heart.)

“My Lord,” he breathes, slow and reverent and watching the spark that lights in Kaeso’s eyes at the words.

“The king is dead. Long live the king.”


End file.
